Madison's Color Guard

[DutchCousin]

Please excuse me for posting, since I'm not even a bando, let alone a MM or FMM. But don't D&BC get most of their members out of the school bands. And isn't band exactly where all the members return to after summer? So please cut out the elite talk. If you treat those "bando's" in this unpolite way you may be hurting the future existence of drum corps. Grow up and get a life. Some people are not as fortunate as you, and may be unable to cough up the $$ needed to be a MM. They give their all in MB hoping that one day their dream will come true and they will be able to march. Let's just hope that by that time they haven't become discouraged by comments like yours.

Drum corps is a great activity, loved by many, for all to enjoy. And even people who have no roots in drum corps can obtain a clear understanding of what is going on. and should therefor be able to have an opinion on what they see. If that results in a "bando" bringing up that the 6th ranked corps only ranked 12th in guard, than that is a good observation, and his conclusion that the guard is/was the weekest link, is a fair one.

Now to come back to the original discussion, I have seen the Scouts preform in about 6 shows this season and I like their show in general. I also met people who don't like it at all. I think the Guard work is quite original but it's not quite there yet, no doubt it will get better in the next weeks. but of course that is just my simple uneducated opinion, after all I'm not even American

[MikeD]

Judging drill is not just a matter of discriminating clean from dirty. If it were, a monkey could do it. You have to have an appreciation of the relative difficulty of different maneuvers. You can't get that from observation alone, you have to experience it.

I'm no expert in MB, but my guess is that DCI shows consistently explore levels of difficulty and kinds of difficulty that are rarely found in band shows.

If you are talking about your 'average' band....basically true...but take a look at some of the BOA-level finalist shows. Some pretty amazing stuff, visually.

When you consider multiple simultaneous demands, it becomes much trickier. You cannot appreciate how difficult it is to play a high G marching backwards at 180 bpm unless you have actually done it. Even if you have played a high G marching backwards at 120 bpm or 150 bpm, it's difficult to extrapolate because the interactions between different responsibilities can be very complex.

An educated musician can certainly understand exactly what you are talking about...and be able to recognize it and evaluate it, if they are a judge.

Then you have to consider the performance pressure. When I marched, we had probably 15 or more competitions per year with crowds of 5000+. Then nats was usually about 20,000+ Is that typical for MB competition? I know that halftime shows can have huge crowds, but that generally is not a competition situation.

The band I work with as wind/percussion arranger and general instructor of anything that needs an instructor ( :P ) does around 8 competitions a season, plus 8 or 9 football games. We are a band in USSBA of size class II (we march a total of aruund 55, inc guard) in their Open division (approximately the top 10-15% of a size class is moved to the Open division of their size class). Competition is VERY intense...sure...not DCI div I level, but for what we are able to do along with the academic and other school loads on the members...pretty intense and competitive. I watch the tense faces on the kids as they sit in the stands waiting for the scores...it is no different in concept from what I experienced as a marching member and instructor in drum corps many years ago.

I understand that some bands may perform DCI level shows in front of large crowds, but in general I think the DCI experience is qualitatively much different than the typical MB.

True...that is at least partially due to the nature of being a summer activity.

p.s. I think that DCI judges should not only have DCI background, they should also be required to demonstrate performance proficiency in the captions they are judging. And wouldn't I love to be there when that happens :o

Some of the great judges in drum corps history never marched in corps.